The Battle of Russia (1943)

Director: Anatole Litvak, Frank Capra

Synopsis:
The fifth entry in the "Why We Fight" series, a two-part documentary detailing the historic conflict between Russia and Germany and the then-current campaign of the Nazis versus the Soviets.

Impressions:
Of all the "Why We Fight" series I've seen thus far, this is the one that rubbed me the wrong way the most. You can chalk it up to wartime necessity, but peddling in Soviet propaganda—which is what this is—sickens me to no end. If anything made Hitler's regime worse than Stalin's, it was the industrialization of extermination, though I believe the raw numbers make Stalin the greater villain. The filmmakers do their darnedest to ensure that no mention is made of Communism, laughably portraying the Orthodox Church as the guiding force in Soviet Russia. Every mention of a "free" people turned my stomach. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was also conspicuously absent. All the praise of the Soviet Union's boundless resources really makes you wonder why they needed so much lend-lease, but I'm going to stop harping on the politics of the film here. If you set that aside, it like the rest of the series is well-crafted for its purpose and does have a fair share of genuinely useful information. I believe I'm a bit of a rarity these days as a dedicated anti-communist, but even so, as a historical artifact, this warrants a viewing. For victory, tovarisch.

Rating:
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